Christopher David is a United States Navy veteran. He is from Portland, Oregon, USA.
When Black Lives Matter protests in Portland continue for almost two months, U.S. president Donald Trump sent unidentified federal officers to deal with the protesters. David decided to join the protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on July 18, 2020, which marked the 52nd consecutive night of protests in the city.
At around 7:30 p.m., David arrived at the courthouse and listened to speeches about racism and police problems. At about 10:45 p.m., he was about to leave when federal officers burst out of the bricked-up front of the courthouse.
David slowly approached the officers with a plan to engage them in dialogue and when one officer pushed him back, he just stood still. He told Portland Tribune, “I felt these gentlemen were violating their oath of office and I wanted to talk to them.”
Several more officers swarmed forward, hit David with a baton and pepper sprayed him. He had two fractures in his hand and because of the spray and clouds of tear gas engulfing the area, he suffered from momentary vision loss.
Sitting down on a park bench, David was assisted by Tav, a street medic who uses the pronouns they and them. With the help of some friends, the medic moved him away from the crowds and got him into an ambulance so he could be taken to the VA hospital nearby.
“They are playing me up as an Iron Man and a Superman,” David told KOIN on July 19, 2020. “I’m a 53-year-old over-weight man on blood thinners and I have a lot of physical damage from the military so I’m not made of steel at all.”
“They could have killed me last night as my ex-wife and daughter have reminded me 45 times this morning,” David said of the officers who assaulted him during the protest in Portland. Here are 10 more facts about him:
- He stands 6’2″.
- He weighs about 280 lbs.
- He is a former wrestler.
- After high school, he attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
- He became a commissioned officer and aeronautical engineer while serving with the Navy Seabees.
- He was a Naval Lieutenant.
- He is a laboratory scientist at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
- On July 18, 2020, he got on a public bus and headed to a protest in front of the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland. He wore his Navy sweatshirt and Navy wrestling hat when he attended the protest in Portland thinking the police offers would respect him because he was a veteran. During the protest, he was carrying nothing in his hands. He only had a backpack on him holding his ID and wallet.
- He was 53 when he attended the protest in Portland on July 18, 2020.
- The viral video showing how he was attacked by police officers on July 18, 2020 was taken by Portland Tribune reporter Zane Sparling. He was in the emergency room of the hospital when he found out that the video went viral and people are calling him a hero. Some even dubbed him Captain Portland.
CONAN Daily 
I was in full NWU’s in Seattle and got arrested and sent to jail -get this- For shining a flashlight on a cop. they tried to charge me with assault-3 (a federal offense), held without bail. i walked into the jailhouse court and before i could even sit down the judge LAUGHED and threw the case out; all charges dropped.
Police, let alone trump, do NOT care about veterans. Hell, he doesn’t even care for active duty either.
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Most cops are veterans themselves….. Wake up and realize facts.
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No. Perhaps at one time most cops were veterans, but that was when the draft was still going and the guys served in Vietnam. Now there are too many who haven’t served. However, that doesn’t mean they are bad -just that the respect for veterans is gone. And, overall, our police have a lot of problems to resolve from day one of being a rookie.
I think of the police officers who delivered an eviction notice the other day and was met with some really high powered weapons – AK47 in North Dakota. The obvious question I had upon learning that the guy had assaults against officers before was ‘why was he allowed to have those guns?”
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NWU wear is authorized for commuting and all normal task associated stops (e.g. stops at child care, gas stations, off-base shopping, banking, DMV and dining) before, during and after the workday. NWUs are not a liberty uniform
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75% of cops are vetarns….
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That’s too bad because they’re giving the veterans a bad name.
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No. Perhaps at one time most cops were veterans, but that was when the draft was still going and the guys served in Vietnam. Now there are too many who haven’t served. However, that doesn’t mean they are bad -just that the respect for veterans is gone. And, overall, our police have a lot of problems to resolve from day one of being a rookie.
I think of the police officers who delivered an eviction notice the other day and was met with some really high powered weapons – AK47 in North Dakota. The obvious question I had upon learning that the guy had assaults against officers before was ‘why was he allowed to have those guns?”
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This is nonsense: it would be almost impossible for 75% of cops to be veterans given only 6% of the population are veterans. The only recent estimate I’ve seen is 19%.
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Who did the video? Was David directed to leave? What were his instructions from the agents? How long did David serve? Why is the fact that he is a veteran germanebto the rioting?
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The above is not to imply that I ever voted for Trump, Reagan, or Bush 41 or 43. Nixon & Watergate turned me against the Republican Party in 1974 when I was 22 years old and have voted D ever since. They were all about dirty tricks and voter suppression then (Roger Stone was a young Republican ratf**king for Nixon) and have always been so down to this day. I am actively working to help elect Democrats from Biden to Kelly to whomever wins the primary for AZ CD8. I donate to candidates, phone bank, & donate to the Lincoln Project. I was on the street picketing Trump’s June 23rd rally at the Dream City Church in Phoenix, I participated in impeachment demonstrations in December last year, marched in the March For Our Lives.
This election needs all hands on deck because there is no level of dirty rat f**king trick below which Republicans are unwilling to stoop to win at all costs. We must hand them a such an overwhelming defeat that they are knocked back to a rump minority for the next 40 years.
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I’m a Navy veteran of the Vietnam/Cold War era, voluntarily enlisted right out of high school in 1969, in fact signed up before graduation. So I’m 15 years older than Lt David. Served on a nuclear submarine, reached the rank of E5. I’m totally disgusted with the way Lt David was assaulted by Trump’s goon squad. And lets be clear, he wasn’t just ‘roughed up a little bit’, he was assaulted & suffered broken bones in what would be felony assault & battery if done by anyone else. The fact that he wasn’t actively protesting makes it even worse. I wrote the following to my House Rep, Senator, Governor, and the GOP RNC (including linking this article to the RNC) which in my case being from Phoenix is Lesko, McSally, & Ducey. Or “Douchey” as I call him:
“Dare we call it fascism yet? The viral video of the recent Portland, OR incident where Trump’s fascist unidentifiable masked camouflage uniformed “Schutzstaffel” paramilitary troops in full combat gear, for that’s what they are in all but name, not legit law enforcement, viciously beating a 53 year old white Navy veteran Chris David with night sticks and spraying him in the face with Mace-like chemicals is prima facie convincing evidence of why, as a Vietnam era Navy veteran myself, I shall never vote for Donald Trump nor any other Republican ever again as long as I live. Especially any Republican incumbent or candidate who enables Trump and Trumpism. For this is no longer the honorable mainstream conservative Republican party of William F. Buckley, Dwight Eisenhower, John McCain, and Barry Goldwater, each of whom are spinning in their graves as we speak, but has devolved and debased itself into a racist, fascistic, narcissistic, subservient Donald Trump cult of personality.
Mr. David was not just any ordinary enlisted veteran, but a former commissioned officer in the United States Navy and Annapolis Naval Academy graduate. He wasn’t even there to participate in the protests. He wore a white sweatshirt emblazoned with NAVY in large letters and Navy ball cap and only wanted to talk with these unidentifiable “Sturmabeilung”, “Sicherheitsdienst”, or whatever the hell they are. Instead of engaging in civil conversation these out of control thugs proceeded unprovoked to viciously and sadistically beat this large man with nightsticks and gassed him as he bravely stood there and took it without fighting back, ending up with a broken arm and bruises about his body. Lucky for him he’s a white man, otherwise he’d be dead.
Then we have what amounts to extralegal kidnappings and false arrests of peaceful protesters by unidentified men in unmarked vehicles, the exact same tactics used by Hitler’s “Geheime StaatsPolizei” otherwise known as “Gestapo” in 1930s and WWII Nazi Germany. Shame on anyone, especially any veteran who swore an oath to defend the Constitution and served this country in uniform like I did, who continues to support this outlaw president. And this is supposed to be a dress rehearsal and preview of what’s to come in other American cities? The whole country, indeed the whole world, is watching. How can we ever castigate any other despotic country on human rights with a straight face? We have a number of friends and acquaintances in Canada we’ve met during our travels in Ontario and British Columbia, and they are watching, aghast and alarmed at what’s happening here.
One of the great heroes of the civil rights and non-violent civil disobedience movement, Congressman John Lewis, the last surviving leader of the 1963 March on Washington, has passed away. In tribute to him the media has been showing videos of his 1963 speech as a 23 year old standing next to Martin Luther King Jr on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and being beaten and left for dead on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL. Those images of police brutality resonate with a new generation being mirrored in what we see happening today. If this doesn’t drive Black and younger voter turnout, nothing will.
We elected the ghost of Bull Connor and George Wallace as President of the United States in 2016 and he must be defeated in 2020. If Donald Trump wins a second term and Republicans retain control of the United States Senate, small-d democracy in America will die and we deserve what we get. I’m dedicated to doing my part to see that doesn’t happen.”
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I am a veteran of 26 years and I am disgusted with this whole article. This disgrace to the Academy is upset with the fed troops but not upset with the destruction of a city and out and out lawlessness at the hands of the real fascists -= the lying demo-rat party.
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